With quiet haste, the twin took a prepared syringe and arched it toward her arm. Mouth open and dry, Wren felt her belly shift again. Feeling the pain swell like electrical currents, she gave up fighting. A tear slid carelessly down her swollen cheek when she looked at the twin again. “Who are you?”
Ruby didn’t smile as she retracted the needle. “Right now, introductions are not necessary.”
Wren lurched forward and eased her back against the fragile hospital bed. Her clammy hands slid down the thin metal bars, and a cry mimicking the world’s sorrow scraped its way from her stinging vocal cords. Every feature on the woman’s body was identical to hers. “How can a copy look identical?”
Pressure. Undeniable pressure.
It hit against Wren’s stomach, threatening to end her. Ruby dropped forward and grabbed her arms. “Lift her legs,” she said to Killian.
When she was on the bed, Ruby slapped on a pair of gloves and spread her legs. “Three quarters dilation. Not crowning yet, but soon,” she said, voice analytic and sterile.
“Fuck!”
Wren pushed her pelvis back and screamed as the pressure mounted her worse than the alphas. Her skin stretched to its utmost capacity, and she closed her eyes to try to weather through the pain. Every tender nerve started to rip before she heard the sound of skin begging to snap like a rubber band. The children inside her weren’t positioned right. They were too big to pass.
“Shit,” Ruby whispered.
“You can’t do this alone, dammit!” Lucas screamed.
Ruby’s eyes widened, but she managed to focus. “We’re going to have to do a C-section,” she whispered. “You—stay the fuck back, alpha.”
Lucas ground his teeth.
Wren scooted back and covered her hands over the now elongated hole. She could
feel the blocked passageway, feel the wriggling appendages preparing their daring escape. Her strength, driven mostly by adrenaline, washed into a sudden enervation. Weeping deeply, Wren slid her legs closed and gave up like a child.
“Please, Wren,” Ruby whispered. “You can’t die.”
Wren pillaged her tears into her chest. The stinging ache that rutted into the top of chest left her hopeless with fear. “Why?”
The twin did something unexpected. Leaning forward, lips near to Wren’s hearing, she whispered, “Because you’re the key to everything. You just don’t know it yet.”
Rapid tears of sorrow drained onto her lips, catching against the edging saliva. “Everyone says the same thing. That I’m special. But I’m not. I’m just someone to use.”
“You are wrong,” Ruby said. “But you’re just going to have to trust me on that.”
“Who are you?” Wren asked. “Tell me, or I will let my children murder me.”
Standing up, Ruby snapped a clean pair of gloves on her hands and tightened her chin. “I am Ruby, High Commander of the Republic’s army, the Kali. Although, names are not important anymore. The war has been won.”
“If it is over, then let me go!” Wren shrieked and started forward, but Ruby quickly took hold of her arms.
Vash sighed, exhausted. He nudged his hand against his forehead and dropped his eyes to the floor. “Go on. Tell her, already.”
Ruby swallowed and let go, nearly choking on her words. “She knows who I am! She must! We are made from the same monster,” she said.
“Another clone,” Wren whispered.
“No,” Ruby said. “Your twin sister.”
Wren didn’t have to let it sink in. She had faced so much that even the unbelievable felt real enough to accept. As her eyes met everyone in that room, she felt a sense of peace rise over her heavy shoulders. Vash. Killian. Lucas. Now, Ruby. They had all acted on her behalf. If she was special, they were the ones to know it.
“Please. I don’t want to be abused anymore,” Wren sighed.
Ruby stopped at the edge of the bed. “Just breathe. We have medicine here.”
Ruby carefully spread her legs and reached for the catheter. She threaded it inside, more abrupt than Wren anticipated, but the pain quickly dissipated. “You’re going to feel a tight pinch from the needle in your—”